After She Left

by Penelope Hanley

  First published in 2019 by Impact Press

  an imprint of Ventura Press

  PO Box 780, Edgecliff NSW 2027 Australia

  www.impactpress.com.au

  Copyright © Penelope Hanley 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any other information storage retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-925384-84-0 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-925384-83-3 (ebook)

  Cover and internal design by Working Type

  For my wonderful stepchildren, Holly Trueman, Reuben Gardner and Oscar Gardner, to the memory of Tom Gardner (1989-2005), and for their father, John Trueman.

  1

  DEIRDRE

  September 1927

  Deirdre O’Mara stood on the foredeck of the passenger liner SS Cheshire as it churned through the dark green swell on its approach to Sydney Harbour. She leant her arms on the iron railing and gazed into the opaque green water.

  With her one mistake, it felt as if she had paid a high price for an uncertain future in an unknown land.

  As the SS Cheshire drew near the quay, Deirdre looked across the water to see an impossibly large crowd of people awaiting the ship.

  There must be more people here than even in Dublin. How in Heaven’s name, she thought, will I recognise Lillian Burnside?

  The ship drew into the quay and eventually the passengers disembarked. Once her feet touched down on Australian land, Deirdre wobbled. She would be swapping her sea-legs for land-legs, or else falling over. The wind whipped her unfashionably long skirt against her ankles and the saltwater lapped and slapped against the edges of the paved wharf as she struggled to find her feet.

  Holding her bags and hoping her hat would not blow off, she made a determined effort to stride forth, her gaze on high alert for someone she had not seen for ten years.

  After a minute she caught sight of her name written on a large cardboard sign, held aloft by a wasp-waisted, red-haired woman wearing a grey suit and sturdy black boots. Deirdre rushed towards her.

  ‘Hullo!’ she said. ‘I am Deirdre O’Mara. How d’you do?’

  ‘How do you do? I’m Miss Madge Burnside, Lillian’s sister-in-law.’

  Deirdre registered the nasal tone of her Australian accent.

  Miss Madge lowered the sign and took one of Deirdre’s bags. ‘You’ve had a long journey. Let’s take a little walk for you to get your bearings.’

  As they walked along the quay and towards the big tram depot on Bennelong Point, Madge pointed out various landmarks and sights, giving a running commentary. They walked past the steamers and tugboats and past a man fishing from the wharf. Deirdre noticed his Asian appearance. He was the first Asian-looking person she had seen in real life. On past palm trees, past biblical-looking birds with ruffs around their necks walking on the grass, and past multi-coloured parrots squawking in trees.

  Who knew there were so many people on the earth? In the distance trams rattled along their steel rails, men in suits and women in dresses with dropped waists and raised hems raced every which way. A man selling peanuts stood at the edge of the park with his barrow. On the next barrow a sign read: FLOWERS – threepence a bunch. They passed a huge sandstone building with lettering across the top that read Old Sailors’ Home. Two small boys the age of Deirdre’s youngest brother chased a hoop across the park, dodging out of people’s way and laughing like a song in short bursts of merriment.

  The two women climbed some stone steps to a street full of hotels and shops. All the colours and noise and commotion made Deirdre’s head spin. Open windows of first floor houses with washing strung between them. A drunken, grey-bearded man laughing in a doorway.

  And Miss Burnside glancing back and saying, ‘How are you feeling, you’re keeping up with me all right, are you? It is no distance,’ and rushing forward again. A front window with lace curtains either side had a sign propped up in it that read: Rooms for Rent – NO BLACKS OR IRISH. She should perhaps expect some of this attitude since this country used to be a British colony, but, all the same, to see such prejudice sank her heart a little.

  ‘Lillian’s house is close by. Your mother might have told you,’ said Madge as they hurried along, ‘my brother Matthew, who married Lillian, died in the Great War. Then our parents died of the Spanish flu.’

  ‘Yes, I am sorry for your losses, so.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Lillian?’ asked Madge.

  ‘When I was little – when we went to the mainland for a baptism or a funeral.’

  ‘Your mother and she kept up quite a correspondence, which is just as well for you, young lady. Now, here we are already,’ said Madge, stopping at 7 Cumberland Street. She opened the door of the small sandstone two-storey terrace house. ‘This is Lillian’s place. I live around the corner.’

  The white-painted wooden door led into a narrow hall. They stepped inside.

  When the door was shut the peace was as soothing as a lullaby to Deirdre’s ears. Her deep breath of relief emerged as a sigh. She had not registered how tense her shoulders had been. They walked down the hall. A citrusy scent intensified as they approached the kitchen.

  ‘So clean,’ said Deirdre, marvelling. ‘Smells like lemons.’

  ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness,’ said Madge.

  An unearthly howl came from the upper storey, as though in answer. Deirdre looked at Madge.

  ‘This is why Lillian couldn’t meet you,’ said Madge. ‘She is helping to bring a child into this sorry world. I’ll put your bags here for the minute. I’m sure you could do with a cup of tea. Did you have sea sickness on the boat at all?’

  After another long groan from upstairs, Deirdre replied, ‘I didn’t. I was lucky.’

  ‘Lucky indeed, and you’re lucky too that Lillian has agreed to look after you – she has enough lame ducks,’ said Madge, putting the kettle on the hob.

  A small bristling of indignation blossomed in Deirdre. Was she to be lumped in with ‘lame ducks’?

  Madge measured tea leaves into a china pot. ‘Marie, the young lady upstairs, will move with her baby to my boarding house. Lillian always manages to find domestic work for young girls. So they can support themselves and the new life that is brought into the world. Between Lillian and myself the babies are kept safe while their mothers do rich people’s work for them.’

  Deirdre was about to reply when the air was shattered by the loudest and longest groan yet from upstairs. Madge opened the Coolgardie safe and took out a jug.

  ‘Milk?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  A faltering low cry quickly turned into a sizable wail.

  They turned to each other with relieved smiles.

  ‘Well,’ said Madge, getting out two more cups, ‘this is a propitious beginning for you, young lady!’ She walked to the stairs. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  A few minutes later Madge descended the narrow staircase, followed by her sister-in-law, a slim middle-aged woman with wispy blond hair and a kind face. Madge re-introduced the women to each other. They exchanged some words in Irish until Madge said, ‘Please, Lillian, can you speak English so I know what’s going on?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Lillian. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘A girl or a boy?’ asked Deirdre.

  ‘A healthy boy,’ said Lillian.

  ‘Me mam said you were a nurse,’ said Deirdre, ‘but I didn’t know you …’

  Lillian nodded. ‘I have a knack for midwifery. Now I can hardly wait to hear what Brigit and your father and everyone have been up to. It’s a long time since your mother’s last letter.’

  ‘I have one for you in my
bag.’

  ‘Marvellous.’ She took a towel that had been drying in a shaft of sunlight and turned to go upstairs again. ‘Oh, Deirdre – it’s in your mother’s last letter but please remind me – when is your due date again?’

  *

  Deirdre sat at the small wooden desk in her bedroom, dipped her pen in a bottle of ink and wrote the date and her address at the top of a thin sheet of paper. Counting forward, she figured her letter would arrive around mid-February, perhaps.

  Her heart softened and her breath deepened as she nestled back into her mother tongue and wrote the first words – Méthair daor,

  7 Cumberland Street,

  The Rocks, Sydney

  6th January 1928

  Dear Mam,

  Thank you for your wonderful letter with all the news about everyone. I read it so often I know it off by heart!

  I hope you and Dad and everyone are well. It is a hot summer here at the bottom of the world and my health is good.

  I am kept busy and have not much time to put my mind back to my old life. But you are all the time in my mind anyway, no matter what my hands are doing. I have been homesick sometimes but here I have the smell of the sea and that helps. Aunt Lillian is very kind and she persuaded some people only three blocks away to take me on, even in my condition, and very nice they are too. They are called Mr and Mrs Nelson. They have no children and I do the cleaning and help Cook with the meal preparation.

  As you know, it’s easier for me to write in pictures than in words. In this envelope I enclose a sketch of Aunt Lillian’s house. Like I said before, it is luxurious to one coming from the Blaskets, so, and I am very comfortable, with the water that pours out of a tap and my own clean little room upstairs.

  Kiss and hug my sisters and brothers for me and I send my love across the ocean to you all.

  God and Mary keep you safe, Mam.

  Your loving daughter, Céit Deirdre.

  *

  Deirdre worked at the Nelsons until her ninth month since she was healthy and hardly showing, as well as in need of the money. On Lillian’s suggestion, since Deirdre was restless to find other artists to learn from, she took art classes at Academy Julian’s twice a week. These were sometimes en plein air and this made her feel at home, for on the island when the work was done she had often taken pencil and paper outside to draw the puffins and gannets, the seals and the waves.

  She was fascinated by the variety of Sydney trees. On the Blasket Islands any trees had long ago been burnt for fuel.

  ‘’Tis a rugged rock of an island that I come from,’ she said to her teacher, Julian. ‘Remote and lonely and a harsh life, but we had the beauty of the sea and sky and we were all close. I miss them, so I do.’

  Julian told her about the fruit trees and vegetables he grew in his backyard and he brought in fruit and vegetables for the still lifes they sometimes painted. He let Deirdre take the apples and pears, carrots and cauliflowers home.

  On Sundays Deirdre went to Mass with Aunt Lillian and Aunt Madge. She met more of the community there, some with Irish accents and even a couple from the west. None, of course, as far west as she was from. As she knew, most emigrants from the Blasket Islands went to America, fondly referred to by the islanders as ‘the next parish west’.

  It was comforting to be part of that Catholic community going to Mass every Sunday but it was not long before doubts about her religion arose in Deirdre’s inquiring mind.

  On most Sundays after Mass she set off to explore her new home, sketching with charcoal and pencil, learning about the birds and flowers, the animals and trees of her new country. She included small sketches with her letters to her mother and decorated her room with others, standing them up on the windowsill.

  Nothing made Deirdre feel more alive than drawing and painting. Creating art made her soul sing and more than anything she felt a fierce longing to make a living for herself and her child from her art. Common sense told her that the chances of that for any woman, let alone an unwed mother, were tiny. But conviction was stronger than common sense and she knew that her soul could not survive being a servant to an Englishwoman for long, no matter how agreeable she was.

  *

  7 Cumberland Street,

  The Rocks, Sydney

  20 February 1928

  Dear Mam,

  I hope you and Dad and everyone are very well. On the 16th February, in the early hours of the morning, my baby was born. Aunt Lillian was wonderful and all went well, though it took an awfully long time and I wished that you were with me. I have forgotten all that now and can only look at my perfect little one with awe. She is a miracle. I have called her Maureen Brigit.

  Aunt Lillian remains very good to me in every way and Mr and Mrs Nelson continue to treat me well. I know I am very lucky. I miss you and think about you often, especially on Sundays when I have more time to think.

  I enclose in this envelope another letter to you from Aunt Lillian. I hope somehow to be able to come and see you with the baby. Who knows what might happen in this ‘land of opportunity’? I might be able to afford the ship fare one day and when that happens I’ll be off and we will see each other again. In the meantime I keep healthy and happy, as does your granddaughter.

  I send my love across the ocean to you all.

  God and Mary keep you safe, Mam.

  Your loving daughter, Céit Deirdre.

  2

  MAUREEN

  October 1945

  When they arrived at Beach Lane, Maureen waited while Howard walked around in front of the pale blue Lancia Artena to open her door. She hopped out and stood on tiptoes to give him a small hug.

  ‘Thank you for a wonderful afternoon, Mr Dathcett – I mean, Howard,’ she said. ‘Won’t you come in?’

  ‘Thanks, pet, but I have to be in town in twenty minutes – got a business meeting.’ He kissed her forehead.

  Maureen watched him drive off then turned and unlatched the short wire gate. She ignored the two teenage lads next door who had left off kicking a tennis ball around their yard to stare after the Lancia Artena.

  ‘Nice car!’ called Evan, the taller boy.

  ‘Snappy dresser,’ crooned his brother. ‘Our Maureen’s movin’ up in the world. Who was that?’

  Maureen continued walking up the narrow front path. ‘A family friend,’ she said.

  ‘Oo-oo-h, too toffee-nosed for the likes of us now, are you, Mo?’ called Evan, mincing along beside her on his side of the short wire fence, his freckled nose high in the air.

  Maureen closed the front door behind her with a thud and walked down the hall. Deirdre was in the backyard studio as usual, working long hours in preparation for an exhibition. Maureen kicked off her shoes and tied an apron around her waist before peeling the potatoes. Those and peas from the garden would accompany the fish.

  Maureen had once heard her mother’s friends Janet and Paul talking to Deirdre in concerned tones about her neglect of her teenage daughter. It was at a party at Beach Lane and Maureen had stood outside the kitchen, listening. Deirdre told them, ‘Benign neglect hasn’t harmed Maureen at all. She’s happy and it’s a good thing to be independent. I couldn’t have had a successful career as a painter without pouring m’self into the work that has supported us both.’

  ‘With a bit of help from Charles, God rest his soul,’ said Janet.

  ‘Yes, o’ course – his money bought this house and it pays for Maureen’s boarding school – but my money puts food on the table. And Maureen has thrived on how we’ve lived. She is highly competent at anything she turns her hand to, you’re worrying about nothing.’

  Maureen was thriving, but she attributed that to the guidance she received from the nuns at Saint Vincent’s. But in fact she did enjoy the independence her mother’s absorption in her painting afforded her. Maureen could not imagine anything that Deirdre would forbid her to do.

  However, she chose not to tell Deirdre just how much time she was spending with Howard Dathcett. Accompanying him to the
races occasionally was all Deirdre knew. Maureen did not tell her mother about the Roosevelt Club plan.

  *

  The following Friday, Deirdre and Olivia were going away for a few days with Janet and Paul.

  ‘They’ve bought a lovely little miner’s cottage,’ said Deirdre on Wednesday morning between sips of her tea. ‘I can’t wait to see it. You should see the photographs Paul took.’

  ‘Tell me where it is again?’ asked Maureen.

  ‘Hill End. It’s a picturesque old gold-mining town somewhere past Bathurst. Janet and I will draw and paint, Olivia can take photographs and Paul can write, and we’ll all go on long walks by the river and talk about art and life and anything else that needs discussing!’

  ‘Yes, yes, all right – I’ve got to go now or I’ll be late for work. Have a lovely time.’ Maureen kissed her and rushed out the side door to catch her tram.

  She liked working as a typist and stenographer in the beautiful marble building in Martin Place. She had wanted to make money and now she was. She had made friends, and was on her way up in the world.

  *

  The Roosevelt Club was in a rounded art deco building in Orwell Street, Kings Cross, not far from Saint Vincent’s. Maureen had been excited thinking about it all that Friday. She had spent half her week’s wages on a strapless white taffeta dress with red piping, its nipped-in waist and full circular skirt making it perfect for dancing.

  They sat at a small circular table near the orchestra and when a waitress came round Howard ordered drinks. The band was playing Glenn Miller’s ‘In the Mood’. Maureen looked up at the chandelier, the biggest she had ever seen, and beyond, at people sitting at tables on the mezzanine. Howard took her small hand in his and led her to the dance floor. She had not noticed his hands before, with their long slim fingers and carefully manicured nails.

  He was an expert dancer, as sleek as a cat, his feet as light as a cat’s tread, sure and graceful. Her skirt swirled. Was there any happiness greater than moving one’s body to music? She was giddy with joy.

  Afterwards they went back to their table to finish their drinks and he ordered more. She was thirsty. ‘Gosh, that punch has a kick in it,’ she said, ‘I thought it would be just fruit juice.’